This invention relates to a ball socket assembly and in particular to a ball socket assembly for use in adjustably mounting a vehicle head lamp.
There is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,188,655, which issued to Tallon et al, a vehicle head lamp mounting assembly which has three peripherally spaced integrally formed mounting ball joints for providing three suspension points from which the lamp is pivotally mounted for independent adjustment from two of the points for limited pivotal rotative movement about a pair of coplanar, orthogonally related and intersecting axes. The ball socket assembly of this invention is designed to be used in such a head lamp mounting assembly, and has several distinct advantages over the pivotal mounting arrangement described in the Tallon et al patent including a means for quickly installing the socket assembly and for locking the ball-headed screw in the ball socket once it is installed in the socket assembly.
A ball socket assembly constructed in accordance with the principles of this invention comprises a plastic molded housing, a ball socket integrally formed on the bottom wall of the housing and including a base member having a spherical-shaped internal wall segment facing an opening of the housing, and a pair of resilient arm members integrally formed with the base segment and extending generally parallel to and equidistant from the axis drawn through the center of the spherical-shaped wall segment. Each of the resililent arm members have a curved internal face which matches the curvature of the spherical-shaped wall segment. A locking means is provided for rigidly preventing further outward flexing of the resilient arm members after a spherical ball has been installed in the ball socket.